


Cadere

by galaxiesreader



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Post-Season/Series 03, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:21:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25845730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxiesreader/pseuds/galaxiesreader
Summary: After the fall, Hannibal and Will have a tense conversation. And a shower.Cadere (Latin): to fall
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 10
Kudos: 170





	Cadere

Will had heard stories of people who survived suicide attempts from the Golden Gate Bridge. One thing he remembered a lot had in common is that the moment after they jumped—the instant they were in the free fall—they regretted it.

Will did not regret it.

Drifting through the air, his vision a kaleidoscope of stars and the sea, he felt at peace. It was a remarkably unfamiliar feeling.

It was peaceful until it wasn’t—until he and Hannibal hit the water with the force of a train. Actually, Will had been thrown from a train before. This was worse. 

Even then, blinded by new and piercing pain, the ache he felt was not akin to regret. Perhaps it was his empathy’s consistent gnaw on his heart, or just an intuitive reaction to the horrible sight of Hannibal’s body fading from view toward the sea floor; nevertheless, one sentiment rang clear. 

_ I can’t let him die. _

It wasn’t exactly a thought—the heat of the moment and cold sting of the water didn’t allow for such coherency—so much as it was a fragment of raw instinct. It was a singular driving force that took over his mind and guided his body beneath the waves, toward the sinking tangle of blood and limbs. The fear and lack of oxygen left Will frantic, adrenaline surging until skin touched skin and, not for the first time that night, he twisted his hands into Hannibal’s shirt like it was the only thing he had left in the world.

Then, he brought them to the surface.

Between their injuries and the exhaustion and the waves, Will wasn’t sure how he ever made it to land. Whether he swam 20 feet or 20 miles, he couldn’t say for sure, but eventually he felt sand beneath him and collapsed with Hannibal onto the shore. Laying there, he could still feel the gentle tug of the tide at his feet, enticing him toward the water.

With what little strength remained in his body, he reached his hand toward Hannibal’s chest, searching for a reason to fight. After a few moments, he found it. The soft rise and fall of Hannibal’s chest gave Will permission to let himself go, wherever that would take him.

* * *

The warmth that Will woke to was much less invasive than the bite of the cold he last remembered. 

For a while, it seemed, he cycled between varying levels of consciousness. Once, the unpleasant smell of rubbing alcohol and the persistent throbbing in his face brought him around long enough to flicker his eyes open. Hannibal was tending to their injuries, and gave Will’s hand a gentle squeeze before he fell asleep once more.

He woke and slept several more times until Will realized the warm fog around him was not just the absence of the cool water; he was in clothes, and a bed, in a familiar haze of drugged bliss. Consciousness seemed inviting enough then that he opened his eyes.

Even with painkillers making him sluggish, Will quickly realized he was in a home that was not his own. He blinked away the fog and took in the room around him; it was sleek, but not unwelcoming. Comfortable, but just clean enough that it didn’t seem to be quite lived in. Just as worry began to creep in at the thought of whose home this could be, Hannibal spoke up from his bedside.

“You tried to end everything—to end both of us,” he began plainly. Even in the privacy afforded to them, and the intimacy that such a conversation called for, Hannibal had his walls up. Will weighed his options, and decided on disarming him.

“I couldn’t leave without you.” 

Will’s voice, gravelly from lack of use, hung in the air between them for a tense moment.

He began to push himself up, but Hannibal’s gentle hands on his shoulders guided him back toward the bed. “I don’t think it’d be wise to move just yet,” he instructed. “Not in your condition.” His voice was reliably calm and commanding. Whether that was from years of experience with medicine or years of experience with Will, he was not sure. 

“You seemed to have fared pretty well,” Will noted. His eyes wandered to where Hannibal sat again, relaxed into a soft chair. If the gunshot wound was bothering him, he didn’t show it. In the silence he was met with, Will risked asking, “Where are we?”

A moment of consideration passed between them. 

“Somewhere safe,” Hannibal said.

Will eyed him carefully. “Safe for who?”

“For us,” he said, assessing Will’s response. “Until we’ve recovered.”

Hannibal’s words were uncharacteristically lacking any flowery nature to them; surely that was intentional. He wielded words like a scalpel, and could get someone to bleed themselves dry before they ever realized he’d opened them up. Today, it seemed, he would let Will do most of the talking. Hannibal had his own time to ruminate over Will’s actions, it was only fair to give him the same chance.

But Will was still firmly stuck on Hannibal’s actions. Helplessly, his mind wandered diverging paths that all led to similarly dark, bloody ends. He knew that Hannibal had some semblance of a moral code, no matter how fucked it may be, but experience had taught him that Hannibal was not beyond hurting innocents as a matter of self protection. Beverly Katz had paid the ultimate price for it, and Will imagined some poor man with a cabin home may have as well.

“What I  _ mean _ …” Will trailed off, choosing his words carefully, “is that I hope we didn’t  _ put anybody out _ for this.”

At that, Hannibal released a small smile. “Growing a conscience suddenly, Will?”

“Suddenly?” he shot off. “No. Everyone that I have hurt—everyone that I have  _ killed _ —has been a killer themselves.” 

“You tried to kill yourself,” Hannibal noted, enjoying this dance.

“Like I said.”

Hannibal shifted tactfully. “Was a metaphorical rebirth not enough for you, Will? You had to go for the real thing.”

“I think of it less as a rebirth,” Will mused, “and more of an afterlife. Of sorts.”

“What’s the difference?” He was poking at Will with curious delight gleaming in his eyes, as they waded back into the familiar territory of give and take. Hannibal may as well have brought the chairs from his Baltimore office so they could keep up appearances. 

Will took note of this, but let the back and forth go on anyway. There was enough unsaid between them even now, that they may as well drag some of it out into the open.

“An afterlife comes with certain freedoms,” Will explained. He thought back to Abigail’s own afterlife with Hannibal, in the very house that served as the scene of his crime— _ their _ crime. It was a gift, in some sense, to get to live so openly in secret. “Freedoms from rules, from expectations. Nothing to expect from someone who’s dead.”

“What are your expectations, then?”

“Please,” he said, eyeing Hannibal with intent, “don’t turn this into a session.”

“You tried to kill me and yourself, Will. Most would say that a session with a psychiatrist is exactly where you should be right now.”

His relentless practicality and logic made so much sense it was frustrating—and right now, not particularly helpful to Will. “I don’t need a psychiatrist now, Hannibal,” he let out along with a sigh. “I need a friend.”

Hannibal considered Will’s words and his actions of the past week; the shared thrill of their kill, bloody lips lingering over bloody lips, the promises that were broken and that were kept when Will sent them falling over the bluff. 

Will gave no hint of it, but he was thinking of the same things too. Their mind palaces shared rooms built of shared memories. Each of them were so delicately woven into each other’s lives so that the two of them were now one intricate, inseparable pattern. Even a casual observer could see how this had evolved beyond a friendship.

“Is that what we are now— _ friends _ ?”

“We are...in between,” came Will’s measured response as he held Hannibal’s gaze. His hands twisted in the bed sheets beneath him, the movement of the conversation making him squirm.

“In between friendship and….” Hannibal trailed off intentionally. He would let Will finish that—would let Will  _ decide _ that. Hannibal knew his own wants, but this was about what Will  _ needed _ .

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

It was a promise, surely. A threat, maybe. And if Hannibal was lucky, a seduction.

Will let his words marinate between them. Then, a pointed shift in the discussion: “I talked to Dr. Du Maurier. About me, about us,” he said. “About  _ you _ …”

Will clocked even the smallest change in Hannibal’s expression, as he successfully masked his alarm with curiosity. 

“And what was her  _ professional _ opinion on the matter?”

“She believes,” he said, “that you are in love with me.”

Will let that dangle between them enticingly, but Hannibal didn’t take the bait. “I’m curious about your own assessment,” he offers.

“She’s not often wrong about you.”

That truth lingered in the silence that followed.

* * *

Hannibal had been the one to suggest a bath. Will had insisted on a shower. He needed to feel the rivulets of water down his chest, needed to see the slick of blood and salt and sweat gliding off his body down the drain. 

It had been so long since he felt clean.

Will had been too weak to undress himself. Even with Hannibal’s practiced hands helping to guide his shirt around bandages and onto the tiled floor, the process was painful and laborious. Dull aches turned to sharp pangs, and scars new and old revealed themselves as one by one, clothing came off. Their history was carved into his body.

Hannibal had made it clear to Will that he didn’t mind leaving any or all of his own clothing on, that he could change later. Whatever made him most comfortable, was what he had said. Will still insisted he take everything off, lest they ruin another set of Hannibal’s clothes. Even his most casual attire seemed deserving of reverential treatment.

Now, they stood in each other’s nakedness, taking in the warmth and the light pressure of the water falling over them. Will held onto Hannibal for support, afraid that if he let go for even a moment, he would shatter like the teacup that haunted their every intention. 

They stayed like that for a while—long enough for each of them to ruminate on various what ifs.

Maybe it was seeing his body for the first time that gave Will the courage to do it. Or maybe, it was the private intimacy of the moment that convinced him a shower could keep their secret. It could have been the way that the water streamed down his hair to his face, dribbling off his lips and whetting their appetites. Perhaps it was the moment he pulled Hannibal closer and their bodies brushed up against each other that sent him spiraling.

Whatever it was, its pull was irresistible.

A hesitant hand moved from its place on Hannibal’s shoulder to his face, bold with desire, and suddenly lips were no longer lingering but intertwined. It was the first time Will had kissed a man, but not the first time he’d imagined it. Until this very moment, he had no idea that kissing could feel as good as killing.

Will ended the kiss as abruptly as he’d started it, pulling back to search for answers in Hannibal’s eyes.

“We should dry off,” was his only response. He knew better than to let this move too quickly; love like this should be savored.

They said nothing as they climbed out of the shower. Nothing as Hannibal changed the bandages littering Will’s body, nothing as they dressed and climbed in the bed next to each other.

For a while, the only sounds were the soft ticking of a nearby clock and their breathing, synced together.

In the quiet, Hannibal whispered to him.

_ “How did I taste?” _

**Author's Note:**

> I am allowed to have a pretentious Latin title because I took 4 years of Latin. You see, they fall off the cliff and now they fall..in love.
> 
> Anyway, Hannibal wants to eat people and Will wants to eat dick. Hope you all are staying safe and well and that this may bring some enjoyment to someone out there.


End file.
